Sunday, January 18, 2015

Trail to Trial

Allow me to introduce
myself; I am Judge George Conway and I have come down here to the frontier,
Washington, Arkansas, to try the Henry Skaggs case here in the middle of this
torrid 1844 summer. My horse came up lame there in Little Rock, so upon the
advice of former friends I took the mail coach. It was the worst $8.00 I ever
spent. It took 36 hours to get down here. The trail was very badly washed out
because of the April rains and the mules were sore-footed and green. I heard
that only one of the animals had made the trip before and she was recalcitrant
and loud-mouthed. The driver and the skinner were tender-hearted drunk when we
arrived at the big hill in Washington and we had to get out and slog through
mud about a mile to get into the town. They thought our weight was too much for
their precious nags. It was nearly dark when I got up the hill.

I went to the jail and there
was Sheriff Arnett asleep in one of the cells. I sat at his so-called desk and
picked up a copy of the Washington Telegraph Newspaper to see how much had been
written about the Skaggs story. There was half a column on the case and a long
editorial about how the jail was inadequate and poorly managed. One did not
need a journalist to tell him that. The garrulous editorialist wrote that the
sheriff treated the jail more like a hotel than a holding facility and that
people came and went as they wished. It was a social club.

“Where’s Skaggs?” I
asked in a loud voice. Arnett did not flinch. I poked his side with my stick
and repeated the query. “Who wants to know?” He replied, not opening his eyes. “George
Conway.” The sheriff jumped to his feet then and began his feeble attempt to
seem like a real sheriff. “Oh, yes sir, judge. I got him locked up down at the
other one.” Come to find out, there were two jails in town: one for the “social
club” and one for true criminals. When he took me to Skaggs, I found what I
expected, a disheveled bag of bones needing a drink. Then I examined the
courthouse. I was surprised to find a really nice facility, less than a decade
old, with truly sophisticated woodwork and satisfactory ventilation.

It took four days to
try the case. Attorney Tupper did a fine job of prosecution and Skaggs was
found guilty of the murder of Will Oaks, a fellow blacksmith. The argument that
ended in fatality was over a woman for whom I felt a great deal of sympathy as
she testified. How she saw anything positive in the lout Skaggs was beyond me.
Nonetheless, it pained me to have to command the hanging. May Providence have
mercy on his soul and may He comfort the lady in her bereavement.

I will find a horse to
buy here in Washington and am resolved to never take that mail coach again.